narrator · Omniscient and anonymous, but primarily concerned with
what the Buendías are doing and how they are feeling.

point of view · Third person, but sometimes uses vivid descriptions
to show the reader the world through the eyes of one of the characters.

tone · Although García Márquez writes with wonder and is truly sympathetic
to the deep emotions of his characters, he also maintains a certain
detachment, so that we are always aware that the book is an account
of Macondo as it appears to a modern, cultured eye.

tense · Past, with occasional flashbacks. There are also brief,
single-sentence references to future events that unfold with the novel.

setting (time) · The early 1800s until the mid 1900s.

setting (place) · Macondo, a fictional village in Colombia.

protagonist · The Buendía family; in a single character, Úrsula Iguarán,
the soul and backbone of the family.

major conflict · The struggle between old and new ways of life; tradition and modernity

climax · The banana workers go on strike and are massacred near
the train station.

falling action · The banana plantation shuts down; Macondo returns to
its former isolation and backwardness; the Buendía clan dies out; Aureliano
(II), who finally discovers how to read Melquíades’s prophecies,
realizes that the rise and fall of the Buendías has always been
destined to happen

themes · The subjectivity of experienced reality; the inseparability
of past, present, and future; the power of reading and of language

foreshadowing · The fact that both Colonel Aureliano Buendía and Arcadio
will face firing squads is heavily foreshadowed in several places.
The final, apocalyptic reading of the prophecies is also foreshadowed throughout
the novel: García Márquez often mentions the prophecies in passing,
and we see various members of the family puzzled by them at different
times.